Google Maps quietly tracks your location history and serves ads inside the app. OsmAnd uses OpenStreetMap data, works fully offline once you download a region, and never logs where you’ve been.

What you gain

• Offline maps for entire countries, useful when traveling or in dead zones
• Hiking, cycling, and topo layers Google Maps doesn’t bother with
• No location history, no ads, no account required
• Detailed POI data from OSM contributors

What you give up

The UI is dense and engineering-flavored compared to Google’s polish. There’s no live traffic feed pulled from millions of phones, so ETA on a busy commute will be less accurate. Business hours and reviews are spotty.

The math

OsmAnd is free with limits, $30 lifetime via the website, or about $10/year on iOS Pro. Google Maps is free but the cost is your behavior data fed into ad targeting.

Who should switch

Travelers, hikers, cyclists, and privacy-conscious commuters in cities they already know. If you depend on live traffic rerouting for daily driving, keep Google Maps as a backup.